New Roof and Murphy's Law

or It's So Not Funny That It's Funny.

As many of you will remember, our house had a roof leak that caused an electrical fire before we even closed on the thing. We told them it needed a new roof, and a roofing contractor agreed with us. HUD, though, wanted to do a patch job. We knew it was the right house so we went ahead with the sale anyway. We assumed that the patch would last us at least 6 months. The day we closed, it was raining. And the roof was leaking. So all summer, we have known we needed to replace the roof. Ben wanted a 3-day weekend, so we chose this weekend, Labor Day weekend.

Friday night, Ben's brother called to let us know that he had been in an accident. He was fine, but the dump trailer we were planning to use for all the old shingles was broken. We dumped stuff onto tarps and onto the ground to clean up later.

The sky was threatening, but we decided we should go for it anyway after looking at weather.

Saturday morning, Ben's dad's truck broke down. This made him late, which did not help because we were counting on his professional expertise for purchasing materials and getting the construction work started.

Saturday afternoon, someone started ripping off the front roof, which we weren't going to do until the back was all done. Oops.

We were blessed Sunday. No rain!!! No rain, so no work done. What a lovely day of rest.

Sunday night, the babysitter I had lined up for Monday had sick kids. Monday morning, I had to call around to find someone to help. Thank goodness for good friends!

Monday morning was pretty smooth, except that without a dump trailer, it took over an hour to empty the borrowed trailer at the dump.

My personal favorite, though, is Monday afternoon. I went down to turn the main line on to the swamp cooler to discover that the main water line was leaking. I came up to tell Ben: "I really wish I didn't have to tell you, but..." We turned off water at the street. Now we have no water to the house. Luckily, we have very kind neighbors who are willing to let our helpers use their bathroom! I came upstairs chuckling and shaking my head. "It's so not funny that it's funny!"

Yes, Virginia, Murphy is alive and well.

Thanks so much to all of our friends, family, and neighbors who helped SO MUCH with the roof. Thanks to the lovely ladies who watched my kids and helped with food, too!!!